


Go for Gold

by TheWinterSldier



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Athlete AU, Athlete Bucky, Athlete Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Bucky is a douche, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rating May Change, Slow Burn, but its not his fault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:21:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWinterSldier/pseuds/TheWinterSldier
Summary: Steve Rogers has been doing gymnastics since the age of five. His parents both passed away, and Steve is determined to make them proud by getting to the Olympics and hopefully getting a gold medal with the help of his coach, Phil Coulson.Phil's gym is failing, though, and he needs more publicity to get more people joining.James Buchanan Barnes is a famous gymnast in Russia, but he's American-born and decides to return to his homeland. He joins Phil's gym and everything thinks he's a godsend.But Steve isn't too sure. Steve thinks James is a douche.What kind of nickname is "Bucky" anyway?





	1. First Meeting

Steve started gymnastics when he was five years old.

He had a lot of unused energy, and he needed a hobby to expel it. His father had suggested soccer, but after failing to get into three different teams, Steve didn’t want to try again. It was humiliating being rejected again and again. Each time Steve tried, the other players were better trained than him, taller than him, older, stronger. And each time, he was the first to be rejected. They had tried basketball too, but Steve honestly didn’t know what they were thinking entering someone as short as him for something like basketball. Football was vetoed by his mother as soon as the suggestion left his father’s mouth. It was too dangerous, as was the suggestion of boxing. Dodgeball was a disaster, Steve left the game covered in bruises with a split lip and two black eyes. He had tried not to cry, but he had. His father was a masculine guy and he tried to teach Steve to be brave, but when Steve cried, he was always there to comfort him and tell him it was okay to cry if he needed to. Steve had seen his own father cry at movies or sad songs, and he always told him it was healthy to cry.

Sarah Rogers, his mother, had been the first to suggest gymnastics. Joseph Rogers, Steve’s father, had been hesitant at first. Steve was short, too skinny, riddled with health problems. He wasn’t sure he would be able to, and even if he could, Joseph was worried he would get bullied more than Steve was already at risk of suffering through. But Sarah found a local gym that offered gymnastics training with the first six lessons free and convinced Joseph to allow Steve to join. It was a beginners’ class, and the other kids there were mostly Steve’s age or a little older. The instructor started them off on simple things like cartwheels and handstands, and Steve loved it. He was good at it, and the instructor gushed over how quickly Steve picked it up.

Steve wasn’t an egotistic person, even at such a young age. He could see that the other kids were trying just as hard and doing almost as good. He didn’t intentionally set out to be better, just to try his best. He did well, and his parents brought him to the next six lessons with the beginners. Steve had gotten the attention of the coach right away, and after the six free lessons were done, he approached Steve’s parents and suggested taking Steve to more lessons. He told them that Steve had real potential to go far with gymnastics, and if he signed up with him, he would make sure Steve reached his highest potential. His parents asked him, and Steve told them that he loved doing gymnastics. They readily paid the money for the next year worth of lessons.

Toward the end of the year, Steve started school. They had to do ice breakers in which they introduced themselves to the class and told them one thing they like. Steve introduced himself and said that he liked gymnastics, and all the boys in class had laughed. For the rest of the day, Steve was bullied by the boys for such a ‘girly’ interest. His mother had been working that day and as much as she wanted to be there to pick Steve up after his first day, she couldn’t get the time off from her job as a nurse. Joseph picked Steve up, and he was livid when he saw the state Steve came out in. Sarah had been equally as livid when she found out later, but Joseph assured her that he had taken care of it.

He ran into his father’s arm, crying. Joseph caught him and quickly found out what had happened. One of his father’s friends was there picking up his own child, so Joseph asked him to watch Steve while he went in to talk to the teacher.

He came out just ten minutes later, and the next day anyone caught bullying Steve was severely punished. The teacher made sure that Steve saw them punishing the student, and she even asked Steve to tell his father that the students had been punished for bullying him. He told his father, as asked, and Joseph was grinning for the rest of the day. Steve got extra ice cream for dessert that night.

Near the end of his year of lessons, Steve asked his parents if he should stop doing gymnastics. He didn’t want to stop, he loved gymnastics, but Steve had been given a lot of hassle at school for it, and he wasn’t sure if it was worth it. His parents had told him that bullies were not worth him giving up things he enjoyed. Steve never forgot what his father said to him that day.

_“Bullies try to make others miserable to hide that they themselves are miserable. Don’t give them the satisfaction of letting them make you as sad as they are.”_

Joseph Rogers was killed by a drunk driver seven months later.

* * *

Steve kept his gymnastics lessons up. His father wanted him to do what made him happy, and this is what made him happy. Sarah encouraged him every step of the way, and she was at every one of his competitions. Steve won every one of them, for his parents.

His coach adored him, he always told him that he was going to go on to do great things. He even said he could make it to the Olympics one day. Sarah was so happy for him, always talking about how proud she was, and Steve didn’t care about the bullies anymore. They didn’t bother him. All he had to do was remember what his father said, what his mother always told him, and what his coach said, and the words just rolled off his back.

When Steve was fifteen, his mother was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer. One year later, Steve was burying his mother right next to his father. Steve was alone, and at risk of being taken into care, until his coach adopted him. Phil was an amazing person, and he was happy to take him in if it meant Steve could keep doing what he enjoyed, at the gym he loved so much.

Again, Steve wasn’t egotistic, but he knew his worth. He knew he was good at what he did, and he even taught lessons to kids in his downtime. The next Olympics was in under a year, and Steve was all set to join the American Olympic team for male gymnastics for the Men’s Individual. He did the floor routine, as well as the horizontal bar and the balance beam.

It was all set. Steve loved his hobby, he couldn’t wait to go to the Olympics and make his parents proud, and he had a great coach. He had the opportunity to go when he was sixteen, but he wasn’t yet happy with his routine, so Steve waited until the next one, so that he would be twenty years old and hopefully more well-prepared.

* * *

“Perfect, Steve!” Phil called out as Steve stuck the perfect landing and the rest of the people watching applauded.

Steve grinned as he looked around at all the people grinning at him, Phil beaming with pride. He had signed up to be evaluated for the chance to join the American Olympic team, and Phil had assured him that he would be the best of the best when the assessor came to watch him in six month’s time.

But one day, Phil came into the gym looking pale. Steve asked him what was wrong, and he informed Steve that he had gone snooping to see what Steve’s competition was. In the process, he had been informed that a new athlete wanted to join his gym, and Phil had readily accepted. His gym wasn’t doing particularly great, and they had assured him the new guy would help bring in more business.

The new guy was called James Buchanan Barnes, an American by birth, raised in Russian, who returned to America three years ago. He was planning to apply for the same category as Steve, and Phil was told he had to give him the same level of attention and training as he gave Steve.

Steve assured him that it was fine, and he could share Phil with the new guy. He didn’t mind. They would both train their best, and whoever was better would go on to be in the American Olympic team. If James was better, he would be part of the team, and Steve would congratulate him like a graceful sportsman.

Phil thanked Steve for being okay with it, and suggested Steve Googled James Buchanan Barnes. Apparently he was big in Russia, so that night, Steve did just that. And yeah, he was big in Russia. The first few videos he found were of a child, but when he checked the date Steve decided that the dates seemed to make sense. This kid was the one who would be joining their gym. Except he was about the same age as Steve now. So he would probably be better than the kid in these videos.

Steve wasn’t even sure that was possible.

The child was skinny, but healthy. He was about an average height, and he had short brown hair, but Steve couldn’t exactly know for sure that James would resemble the chid he had been ten years ago, so he didn’t pay much attention to memorising his features.

James was incredible.

It was like gravity had no effect on him until he decided he wanted it to when he was on the rings or while he was doing his floor routine. Every video he watched, James’ routines were flawless. Apparently he had his own (very large) fan-base in Russia and a considerably smaller but no less vocal fan-base here in America. There were videos of him winning awards, travelling around Russia doing signings, being given gifts from his fans and even the cliché kissing-a-baby thing.

The earliest video Steve could find of him was when he was about three! Against fully grown men! Steve didn’t even know three year olds could enter athletic competitions against adults, but apparently they could in Russia. And James won!

The most recent video he could find was about two years ago, and it was a man speaking on James’ behalf with James stood beside where the man was addressing a crowd in front of a pedestal. Steve didn’t speak Russian so he didn’t know what he was saying or who the man was, but James didn’t look happy. Steve eventually found the same video, but with English subtitles.

The man turned out to be James’ coach, Drakov Romanova. Steve had read that name somewhere else during his research and paused the video to go back and find it. Drakov was also James’ legal guardian and had been since James was orphaned as a toddler in New York, and he had taken James back to Russia with him six months after the adoption was approved. Steve went back to the video and pressed play. Romanova was saying that, because James was now eighteen, he would make his own choice as to whether or not he wanted to stay with him or leave, and James had decided that he wanted to go back to America. Drakov wouldn’t be going with him, but he was sending his daughter with him to keep him on track as well as referring James to an American coach that Drakov approved of.

People around them started shouting questions to them in Russian, too many for the subtitles to accurately translate, but Dravok just took James’ arm and led him into the car awaiting them.

“Wow…” Steve whispered to himself in his bedroom.

James was incredible, and there seemed to have been no downside and no lull to his career. Steve started to think he had no chance of getting onto the Olympic team, but all it took was a glance at the picture of his parents on his nightstand and it didn’t matter anymore. Steve would try his best. That’s all he can do. If he gets in, great. If he doesn’t, at least James may be able to make America proud.

* * *

James had walked in with a few other people here to train, but Steve could instantly tell which one was hoping to be an Olympian. He wasn’t exactly dressed particularly special, he was dressed like anyone else who came in around the same time. Navy blue tracksuit bottoms, black tshirt and a red jacket. His brown hair was styled into a quiff, which was a little unusual for someone coming in to do exercise. He was taller than Steve by a few inches, and his skin was a little more tanned. But Steve recognised him from the videos he had watched the night before. He had grown into his body a little more than in the last video Steve had watched. He was less skinny and more toned, his jawline was more refined, and he looked a little more self-confident.

Steve was the first one James approached. Steve was wearing a tshirt with the gym’s logo on it, so that wasn’t exactly surprising.

“Hey, do you know where the coach is? Phil Coulson? I’m supposed to be meeting him for an induction, but I think I’m a little early…” James chuckled quietly, a little awkwardly as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Oh, yeah… Are you James Barnes?” Steve asked as he held his hand out to him, and James took it to shake it as he nodded.

“Yeah, but please, call be Bucky.” He smiled a dazzling smile. His teeth were a little uneven, his canines more pronounced to make it seem like he had fangs, and they were bright white.

“Bucky? Where’d that come from?” Steve asked in confusion, still shaking Bucky’s hand.

“My middle name. Buchanan. Bucky is short for Buchanan.” He explained, then looked down at Steve’s hand still gripping his own, and Steve let go quickly with a light blush.

“Sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Bucky assured him with another quiet laugh.

“Phil is in his office, I’ll go get him for you,” Steve told him, and Bucky thanked him before Steve left to go get Phil.

He knocked on the office door, then let himself in when Phil called out for him to come in.

“Hey, James Barnes is here for you…”

Phil nodded and stood, then followed Steve out to the main room where Bucky was leaning against a wall, watching the other gymnastics, some working on their routines, others just having fun. There was a woman with fiery red hair leaning against the wall next to him. Steve hadn’t seen her come in with him, but Steve could tell by how close they were stood together that they knew each other. It wasn’t just a coincidence that they were here at the same time.

Bucky and Phil shook hands, and Steve wandered over to the horizontal bars to practise as they talked. He glanced over at them whenever he could, and Steve was amazed when he watched Bucky’s routine on the balance beam. Steve couldn’t keep up with the different moves he was doing, he was going too fast, and it looked flawless. Phil and the redhead clapped excitedly when Bucky finished and stuck the landing, and Bucky grinned at the praise they were obviously showering him. He even took a dramatic bow.

Steve tried not to feel jealous, but he couldn’t help it. It was human nature to feel jealous when others were getting so much positive attention for something you were good at too. But he refused to let himself feel any negative emotions to Bucky right now. He had done nothing wrong to him. Just because he was good at his passion didn’t mean that Steve should dislike him. Bucky _had_ been doing this since he was about three years old. Steve should bond with him over their shared interest, then no matter who got through to the Olympics, both will still be happy. Either for themself or for their friend.

Yeah, Steve would be friends with Bucky. He was determined to be Bucky’s friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Steve was not Bucky’s friend.

Bucky was, in fact, an asshole.

Steve first started to think he might not be as nice as he seemed the day after he met him. Steve came into the gym as usual to help train younger members of the gym. He wouldn’t be training himself today, two days in a row would be too extraneous and could cause more damage than good. Bucky was there, but he wasn’t training that day either. The redhead who was with him the day before was, though. She was using the rings, and Bucky was giving her tip and helping her improve her form. He seemed to be really helping her, and when he got something wrong he assured her it was okay and just helped her try again.

He only wasted a few minutes watching them, then Steve turned back to his own job with the idea in his head to talk to Bucky later and try to be friends with him.

Bucky and his friend finished before Steve was finished with the kid he was training, a little boy called Peter, so they were sat on the bleachers drinking water and talking. Some of Peter’s routine was perfect, but some parts needed _a lot_ more work. As graceful as the kid was sometimes, he was the clumsiest person Steve had ever met in other areas. Especially the balance beam.

Peter was doing pretty well, until he got to a flip. The, he missed the bar, smacked his head off it, and landed in a heap of lanky limbs on the mat. Steve immediately rushed to help him and see if he was okay, and he frowned when he heard laughing somewhere behind him. After quickly making sure that Peter was okay, Steve stood again and turned to face the noise with his best scowl in place. He was surprised to see Bucky and the girl with him laughing, leaning close to each other and facing each other. Steve hesitated. Maybe they were laughing about something else, and it was just a coincidence that it happened to be at the same time as Peter fell.

He let it slide and turned back to instruct Peter again on how to complete the move, and after another three falls Peter got it perfect. Steve didn’t hear Bucky and the woman laughing any of the other times Peter fell, so he convinced himself that it was indeed a coincidence.

Oh how wrong he was.

As Steve was training another student, a little girl called Clair, the same thing happened. She was on the horizontal bars and she missed it when she tried to change from one bar to another and fell to the mat with a thud. This time, Steve happened to be facing where Bucky and his friend were still sat. The two of them were watching Steve with his student, and they both laughed while looking right as Clair and quickly looked away. Clair noticed too, and she blushed as she stood up and turned away from the two laughing at her, looking at the floor in shame.

“It’s okay, no one nails this stuff in their first week.” Steve assured her, trying to ignore his own anger in favour of making sure she wasn’t too discouraged. He would have a word with those two later.

Clair refused to give the bars another go, so Steve spent the rest of her session going through some stuff on the balance beam. She already knew it all and was very good at it, so there was no real progress to be made. That meant the rest of the session was very unhelpful and a little dull, and she almost seemed glad to go home, which was most likely because Bucky and the woman were still watching her from their place on the bleachers and she was clearly very conscious of that. As she left, Steve pulled her mother aside to tell her what had happened and assured her he would have a talk with the people who had laughed at her, and Clair’s mother assured him that she would talk to her daughter and persuade her to have another go on the bars during her next session.

As soon as the door closed behind the mother and daughter, Steve’s face turned angry and he marched over to where Bucky was sitting. The woman nudged Bucky’s arm when she noticed Steve coming, a smirk on her lips, and Bucky looked up from his cell phone to smile at Steve.

“Hey Steve! What’s with the face?”

Steve ignored Bucky’s question in favour of asking his own. “Did you come out of the womb doing perfect acrobatics?”

Bucky seemed caught off-guard by the question, but then he laughed. “I appreciate the compliment, but no. I trained just like everyone else.”

“That wasn’t a compliment. God, you’re arrogant.” Steve rolled his eyes. “I was trying to point out that you weren’t always as great at all this as you are right now. You had to work for it.”

“That… Still sounds like a compliment.”

“You laughed at Clair!” Steve snapped, and he could hear the girl sniggering next to Bucky.

“Clair…? Who?”

“The girl why was just in here! She fell off the bar and you two laughed at her!” He split his attention between Bucky and the girl. “Who the hell are you, anyway?”

“Natasha Romanov.” She answered. She didn’t elaborate, and Steve was blown away by just how arrogant she was too. She didn’t feel the need to introduce her anymore than just her name. She wasn’t going to explain why she was there.

“Whatever. You were laughing too! Are you a gymnast?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do what Clair was attempting to do?”

“Yes.”

Steve wasn’t going to get anymore than one or two word answers from her, so he gave up and turned back to Bucky. “Why were you laughing at her?”

Bucky laughed, like he was remembering exactly what was so funny about a fifteen year old failing at her favourite hobby. “Her form was completely off! She was terrible!”

“Because she hasn’t mastered it yet! And she never will if people laugh at her every time she fails! It’ll just make her give up!”

“That’s not my problem.” Bucky shrugged and leant back against the bench behind him. “If she’s not strong enough to take a bit of criticism, she shouldn’t be in this line of work.”

“This isn’t a line of work for her, it’s just a fun hobby!”

“Then she should stick to the beam or the climbing frames. Why are you getting so pissed about this?” Bucky genuinely looked confused, and that just pissed Steve off even more.

“Because! She was humiliated!”

There was a little beeping sound then, and Bucky looked down at his watch. “I have to get back to training. Can we reschedule this conversation for another time?”

Before Steve could answer, he stood up and moved around him to make his way back on the floor, Natasha following behind him with a smirk on her lips.

As if they were trying to piss Steve off more, they went straight to the horizontal bar and Bucky performed the routine Clair had been attempting, finishing it flawlessly on his first attempt. He just so happened to land facing Steve, and he even had the _nerve_ to wink at him before turning to Natasha as she applauded him, then bowed to her. Steve could hear them both laughing, and the sound just made his blood boil more.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Steve went to Coulson’s office and knocked on the door. Phil had always insisted on making sure the atmosphere in the gym was encouraging and welcoming. He wouldn’t put up with this. He would talk to Bucky.

Phil called out for him to come in, and Steve walked in to see him smiling. “Steve! Great news. The word has gotten out that Barnes joined out gym and we already have ten new applicants for our beginner classes and six for our casual learner’s class! Anyway, what can I help you with?”

Steve hesitated then. He didn’t want to damage Phil’s good mood. But he also couldn’t let kids come into the gym and have their confidence damaged by being laughed at by the guy who their parents are sending them here because of.

No doubt they had chosen this place because Bucky Barnes was here, and they would probably tell their kids that and introduce them to Bucky when they brought them in. Then when Bucky laughed, they would think there’s no way they’ll get any good if a famous athlete was laughing at them.

“Actually, I’m here to talk to you about Bucky…”

“He’s great, isn’t he. Just a sweet guy.”

“No, he’s not.”

Phil was clearly surprised by that, but Steve ignored that and went on.

“I heard him laugh at two students today when they failed. Peter fell off the balance beam and Clair fell from the horizontal bar, and both times Bucky openly laughed at them.”

Phil went silent then as he started thinking about that. No doubt he was trying to decide what to do about it. He couldn’t tell Bucky not to come to the gym, the gym would go bankrupt. But he couldn’t let Bucky laugh at kids who were trying their best.

“Okay.” Coulson nodded as he seemed to make his mind up. “Steve, could you ask Bucky to come see me please?”

Steve nodded and left the office to go back to the main room. He went up to where Bucky was practicing his routine and waited as patiently as he could for him to stop and pay attention to Steve. It was taking way too long, like Bucky was purposely avoiding acknowledging Steve’s presence. Steve crossed his arms and rolled his eyes as he waited. Eventually, Bucky ‘finished’ and ‘noticed’ Steve stood there.

“Oh, hey! Sorry, didn’t see you there!”

That was a bald faced lie, but Steve didn’t bother mentioning it. “Couch Coulson wants to see you in his office.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Steve turned and walked away. He thought he heard Natasha mutter something about Steve tattling on Bucky, and they both laughed before Bucky headed to Coulson’s office.

Bucky was only gone for a few minutes, and when he returned he was still wearing that obnoxious smirk. Well… Maybe the smirk wasn’t that obnoxious. The smirk might actually be attractive, if it weren’t on such an insufferable, cocky jackass. Steve didn’t like that look right now. There was no way Bucky could have been given the talking to that Steve had been hoping for, and if he had Bucky sure as hell didn’t take it as seriously as he should.

Bucky went straight back to practising his routine after sharing just a few moments of conversation with Natasha. He wasn’t effected in the slightest, and Steve was _not okay with that._

Steve went back to Coulson’s office and banged on the door. Almost immediately, Phil opened the door and ushered him in.

“He’s still smiling and acting like he did nothing wrong! What did you say to him?”

Phil sighed and returned to his desk. “I asked him to be a little more understanding when it came to people… Less skilled than him, and show a little more compassion. He said ‘no problem’. There wasn’t really anything else I could say, so I sent him back out after talking to him about his routine. Steve, I honestly don’t think he meant to be mean. And what he did to _look_ mean, he’ll stop now.”

Steve still wasn’t sure, but he decided to give Bucky the benefit of the doubt.


End file.
